Justification (theology)

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In Christian theology, justification is the event or process by which sinners are made or declared to be righteous in the sight of God.^[1]

In the 21st century, there is now substantial agreement on justification by most Christian communions. The collective bodies of most of the largest Christian denominations, including Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and Methodist, have affirmed a 1999 Lutheran–Catholic Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification that details this consensus, noting different distinctive emphases that individual communions consider essential to state.

Historically, the difference in theories on the means of justification has often been the theological fault line that divided Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox from the Lutheran, Anglican and Reformed traditions of Protestantism during the Reformation.^[2][3]

Central issues of dispute have revolved around the nature or mechanism of the righteousness given by God when God justifies humans: is it a quasi-legal act of imputation only where the person is not or only subsequently changed (associated with Protestants), or a dynamic transformative process where God's goodness is infused, or a moral and spiritual energy working in humans (associated with Anabaptists),^[4], or both imputed and infused (associated with Catholics), or better expressed using concepts such as "adhered" (Newman) or "reputed" (Erasmus)? Also: can justification be lost or re-gained? Can justification be usefully treated apart from sanctification and vice versa? What role does baptism play? Is it a process or event or both?